


We're Both A Canvas

by awkwardCerberus



Category: Aldnoah.Zero (Anime)
Genre: Boys Kissing, Established Relationship, M/M, Scars, Showers, i rewatched this show and im now dying, idk - Freeform, scars in showers, their both just fluffley sweeties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 07:05:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6228601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardCerberus/pseuds/awkwardCerberus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If our bodies are a canvas, then scars must be the artwork.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We're Both A Canvas

**Author's Note:**

> Wooooo boy. I rewatched this show yesterday and viola this thing was born.

Seven years. That was apparently the going rate for the life of the former Count Slaine Saazbaum Troyard, or so he was told.

A little over year ago, he was under the impression he'd be rotting in that prison cell until he was nothing but a pile of dust and bones. And then--on one of Kaizuka Inaho's infamous monthly visits (if one could call an hour and a half of slow chess, empty threats and second-hand politics a "visit")--was he informed that the other man had asked that the sentence of Slaine Troyard be reprocessed. At first he assumed it was nothing but a cruel joke, and waved it off with a polite "go fuck yourself" and walked out.

However, the joke stopped being funny when, one afternoon a couple weeks later, he was ushered into a courtroom presided over by a military tribunal composed of both Earth and the Vers Empire's best judges. Kaizuka Inaho, his sister, and the crew of the Deucalion were seated in the rows behind the defendant's box. Empress Asseylum Vers Allusia herself had even shown up on one of the days to vouch for Slaine's character--saying that, "though his actions were those of a war criminal, his heart never stopped trying to do the right thing"; Slaine had let a small laugh slip out and one of the guards jabbed him in the ribs with the barrel of their rifle. 

He knew it was the appearance of the Vers Empress that changed the judges minds. His sentence was reduced to a month of house arrest and seven months of heavy parole. He was told that if he broke either, a team of armed guards would apprehend him and throw him back in solitary confinement until, quote: "he forgot what the sun was". The court then compiled a very small list of places he was allowed to go to while on parole, and ordered under penalty of life in prison without further parole (he'd heard that one before), to report weekly to the parole office for examination. None of this mattered to Slaine--he would have just as fine remaining in prison--until the question of residence was brought up. The entire courtroom waited in an agonizing silence for anyone to raise their hand and accept responsibility for him. 

A hand finally raised in the front row, "I, Kaizuka Inaho, accept responsibility for Slaine Saazbaum Troyard."

Despite the entire crew of the Deucalion protesting--most vehemently Inaho's sister--one of the guards had locked on his ankle bracelet and entered Inaho's address into the system. He was given a change of clothes and told to report back to the parole officers when his house arrest lifted. Yuki drove them to Inaho's apartment in a UFE humvee, and when she had pulled up to the curb, turned around in her seat and pointed a handgun at Slaine's head.

"Do anything to Nao and I will make your death very painful," she had said. She held the gun to his head until he complied. 

Inaho never expected he'd develop feelings for Slaine, and Slaine never expected he'd run with those feelings. That was until one night, when the two of them were sitting on the couch, and Inaho had simply leaned over and kissed the blond. And then he just sat there, gauging the former Count's reaction—and Slaine had just sat there staring at him, like a fish with a hook in its cheek. 

"What....what the hell was that for?!"

Inaho shrugged and resumed typing on his laptop. "I felt the need to do so. Kissing is the standard way of showing one's romantic attraction."

 

  
And here they were, a couple months or so later, an odd little domestic couple that the rest of the Deucalion crew like to make jokes about. And neither of them cared in the least.

Slaine had just stepped into the shower when the door to the apartment opened with a click. Inaho set his bag on the table and tugged his uniform coat off, hanging it up by the door.

"I'm back," he called to the noise of running water, "I'm sorry it took so long. Calm was having trouble trying to recode a new Kataphrakt."

The bathroom door was half open, and the silhouette of Slaine bathing was outlined on the steamed-up glass doors. Inaho contemplated his current options, and found the most enjoyable to be joining his boyfriend in the shower.

He stepped out of his uniform and dropped it into the basket, before removing his eyepatch and setting it delicately on his nightstand. Inaho pushed the door open further and announced his presence to the other man. When he stepped into the shower, Slaine was facing him, arms crossed.

Inaho stared at him, failing to find the meaning behind the irritated gesture, "what?"

"You don't have to keep saying it's you. I know it's you," when Inaho didn't say anything in response, Slaine rolled his eyes and pressed a quick kiss onto the brunet's forehead and handed him the bar of soap, "just get my back."

Slaine turned around in the shower, arms going up to hold his wet hair off his neck. During his time in prison, his hair hadn't been cut as often as he would have liked, so he had grown accustomed to it brushing an inch or so under his shoulders. Cold showers were another thing he had simply learned to accept. The warden made a firm point to inform Slaine that, although the facility was equipped with a hot water heater, he wouldn't be allowed to use it at any point in his "lowly traitor life". Inaho preferred warmer water, but also continually stated that he didn't mind cold water, although Slaine had a suspicion he was just saying that.

Several seconds go by with Slaine standing bored under the water, his back left untouched, "hey, are you just gonna stand there or—"

He stops when he feels a few fingers trailing slowly across his back. It takes Slaine a moment to realize that the fingers are following a predetermined course, running across his skin in a series of long, straight lines intersecting one another at random angles and degrees. He can feel the fingers start up at his shoulder blades and zigzag down and across, and...

The muscles in the former Count's back tense and his voice goes hard and flat, "they're just scars, Kaizuka," he says, and then his shoulders drop a fraction—though he is still tense, "you've seen them before."

Inaho—seeing that his actions caused an outcome he hadn't predicted, nor did he mean to happen—withdrew his touch from the scarred flesh and began to rub the bar of soap casually across Slaine's back. However, his eye still traced every scar in its entirety as he does.

Some of the scars are thin, perfect lines that taper off to a point. Too thin for a belt, but too scattered for a cat of nine tails. A whip, maybe? Others are short, square lines that end flatly on either end. Left there by a pole, or a cane of some sort.

Something breaks him out of his train of thoughts. Slaine took the bar of soap from his hands and put it back on the shelf, waving his hand in front of Inaho's face, "Earth to Kaizuka. You zoned out again."

"Mhm, so I did," Inaho looked at Slaine, who had now (ironically) zoned out himself. Or so it would seem. He was staring at Inaho now, blankly focused on his face. The brunet cocked an eyebrow, "now you're zoned out."

Slaine brought a hand up and cupped it around the side of Inaho's face, his thumb at the perfect distance to stretch up and slowly run itself over Inaho's left eye. When the bio-device had been removed, Dr. Yagurai had been able to simply stitch the two eyelids together. His stitches had been fine and precise, and now it looked as though the eye was simply closed.

Despite that, Slaine still ran his thumb over it like it was a horrible marring of Inaho's face. If he thought about it hard enough, he could still remember it. Looking down the sights of his pistol at Inaho, how the last thing Inaho had said had been, "Bat", the recoil in his hands as the pistol fired and the empty casing clinked onto the floor. How Inaho lay there, half dead in his own blood.

"It's just a scar, Slaine," Inaho says, mocking the blond's choice of words from before. Although he neglected to mock the cold tone that accompanied Slaine's words, "you've seen it before."

Slaine blinks himself out of it. He wants to say, _seen it before? Of course I've seen it, I'm the one who put it there!_ But he doesn't. Instead, he simply says, "I know," in a resigned manner, and kisses Inaho—both their lips lukewarm from the cold shower.

He kissed the brunet's lips—those he kissed for a long time—and then he reached down and grabbed Inaho's hand, and held it tightly. Slaine moved his lips up, to kiss the bridge of Inaho's nose, eventually moving over to kiss the scar of his left eye. After a moment there, he gave pressed a final kiss to the top of the Inaho's forehead.

"Yuki used to say that our skin was a canvas, and all the scars and bruises were what got painted on over time," Inaho said, still keeping his and Slaine's hands together.

"Is that so?" Slaine tilted his head to the side, and brought his forehead down so that it touched with Inaho's, "well in that case, it seems we're both a canvas."

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd so mistakes are mine.


End file.
